


Systole

by Tierfal



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Blood Kink, Canon: Fullmetal Alchemist (2003), Canon: Fullmetal Alchemist: Conqueror of Shamballa, Drama, Fix-It, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-19
Updated: 2014-04-19
Packaged: 2018-01-20 01:22:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1491469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tierfal/pseuds/Tierfal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six years on, Roy's whole heart gets shaken back to rights.</p><p>[Major spoilers for '03/CoS.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Systole

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pax_et_Lux](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pax_et_Lux/gifts).



> …this was supposed to be short. And good! Short and good. It is neither of those things.
> 
> It was inspired a ~~long~~ while back by [a thing that the too-lovely Pax drew](http://mustelric.tumblr.com/post/76039625418/used-a-ref), although it… barely… touches… on the wonderful art. So in addition to being bad at writing fic, I'm bad at _being inspired_. :'|
> 
> Despite its general mediocrity, however, it is for [Pax](http://mustelric.tumblr.com), with love and CoS feels; and also for [Panda](http://paranoid-panda.tumblr.com/), with love and blood!kink. ♥♥♥♥ Hope it makes you smile, guys! ♥

Roy doesn’t remember much of the in-between times.  The first is just a shuddering flashback to the sharp cold-burn of frostbite, a scream of wind, and a sprawl of white; the second is a valley strangled by the hush of solitude and silence, broken by a soft, mechanical sort of clicking—the sound of an automaton going through the motions of a life.

He is a seismograph, then.  He is pits of hissing radio static, wells of waiting, quiet motionless despair—and then, at intervals, comes Ed.

Nothing else can feed the fire that Ed summons instantaneously, with just a glance, just a breath, just a flickering shadow of his form in the night—

But it always turns out to be an ordinary streak of moonlight wreaking mischief in Roy’s heart.  It always turns out to be the blind spot playing tricks.  It’s always a wish; a dream; a figment; a gasp of stupid, heedless hope that sticks and scrapes inside his throat.  It’s always someone else’s silhouette with one curve or angle in common, another insufficient body with one tantalizing similarity.

It’s always a false alarm, and there’s no spike from the needle.  It’s always just another lie to pave another day.

And he’s almost used to it, now.  He tumbles through the hours; he forces himself to care.  He can feel things, most of the time, at least in daylight; he’s exasperated when Jean falls asleep on paperwork; he’s concerned when Kain comes down ill; he’s furiously angry when the brass try to tie his hands with red tape.  He supposes this is better than the winter, when it was just the cold straight through, beyond the walls and at the core of him, within and without.

 _Without_.  In a detached and faintly aching sort of way, it’s an extraordinary word.

  


* * *

  


The phone in the downstairs hall wakes him at some hazy lightless hour well past midnight.

He wonders what the point is, and it rings.

He wonders if it matters, and it rings again.

He wonders whether he still has something left to lose, and he concedes that there are pieces of him that could yet go missing, and he drags himself out of the bed.

He very nearly breaks his neck on the stairs; his quick right hand seizes the banister and saves him from everything but a sizable bruise on his knee.  He has one telephone trill left.  He swings around the foot of the staircase; he knows this house from top to bottom, but in the dark its contours change.  The phone rings; he can almost feel the soundwaves thrumming through the air; he can certainly feel them pounding at his skull.

His hand wraps itself around the invisible receiver, and he lifts it to his ear.

“Shit-fuck,” a voice says, a voice ribboned through with choking wetness—tears? blood?—and a harsh, hoarse tremble.  “Are you there?”

“Edward,” he says.

It’s not a question.

This is a dream.

“Who the fuck else would greet you like that?”  A shaky laugh, slick, unsteady, riddled— “Look, I—it went—wrong—it—Al’s breathing, but he won’t wake up, and I had to break into somebody’s house to use their phone—”

Roy isn’t breathing _or_ waking up.  “Where are you?”

“Intersection of—of Twenty-First and Wright—”

“I’m coming.”

“Roy—”

He has to soften his voice, iron out the fear, crush down the soaring muddle of terror and of ecstasy— “Yes?”

“Bring—bandages.  And _hurry_.”

“I’m coming,” he says, and he runs.

  


* * *

  


He doesn’t drive especially well when he has the aid of clear sunlight, when he’s not beset by the maddening seethe of adrenaline through his veins, but he’d drive fully blind tonight if he had to; he’d run the distance; he’d _crawl_.

There’s a tangled lump of humanity on the sidewalk, centered in a streetlamp’s glow—one young man huddled around the splayed body of another.

As he steps out from the car, he registers that the cold, brisk wind slicing through his wrinkled shirt is the same force twisting the long yellow ponytail into the air, but then sensations mostly fail him.

Ed is clutching Alphonse’s torso to him with his left arm, because the right hangs limply.  His sleeve and his side are soaked with blood, staining deepest in a ring around his shoulder, following the line of the automail bracing.  Alphonse lies motionless but for the gentle rise and fall of his chest; mist ghosts above his lips and then dissipates, here and gone.  To Roy’s left is a house with all but one of the windows dark and a hole fringed with transmutation marks cut through the door.

“Edward,” he says.

“This can’t be right,” Ed says, tightening his grip on Alphonse’s shoulder.  “I mean, it’s not—equivalent—and he _started_ here; if anything, it should be _me_ —”

“What happened to your arm?” Roy asks.

“I dunno,” Ed says, eyes fixed on the faint cloud of white hovering over Alphonse’s mouth.  “Backlash.  Gate tried to keep it, prob’ly.  I don’t remember.  Al.  Al, d’you hear me?  Hey, dumbhead, we made it.”

“Do you think perhaps we should take him to a hospital?” Roy asks.

“I dunno,” Ed says.  “Yeah.  Maybe.”  He shakes the pale-faced young man cradled in his lap.  “ _Al_ , come _on_.”  His voice catches; his eyes fill— “Don’t you _fucking_ leave me, you little _shit_ —”

“May I carry him?” Roy asks softly.  “I have my car; we can go straight there.  It won’t be long.”

Ed closes his eyes for a long moment, holding Al’s head to his chest and rocking gently back and forth.  When he opens them again, they’re clear.

“Yeah,” he says.  “Help me out—the automail’s fucked.  Winry’s going to murder me in my sleep.  We should get somebody to fix that door.  Here, take hi— _careful_ —”

Roy had noticed that Ed’s cheekbones are the slightest bit sharper, because Roy’s mind is a parched, desperate, hoarding repository of all things Edward, but he thought perhaps it was simply the beautiful bone structure settling in.  It’s not until he lifts Alphonse’s gangly body in both arms that he realizes it may well be because they haven’t been eating half enough.

“I’m going to need you to get the car door,” he says, shifting the ungainly weight closer to his chest, feeling the thrum of discontentment in the muscles of his back, which will blossom into agony tomorrow.

Ed scrambles ahead with the automail arm swinging at his side; dark droplets slung from the fingertips splatter on the pavement.

It’s not a great distance, but Alphonse is not a small boy, and Roy’s arms are beginning to feel slightly leaden as he reaches the vehicle; his spine twinges as he crouches to try to lay the warm body on the backseat.

That’s when Alphonse begins coughing so violently that Roy startles back, bangs his head on the inside edge of the car door in the process, and very nearly drops his charge into the gutter in his surprise.

Alphonse’s eyelashes lift just far enough for a sliver of cinnamon-brown to show.

“Colonel?” he mumbles.

“ _Al_!”  Somehow Ed squeezes in between the car door and Alphonse’s knees, which presses him up against Roy’s shoulder; he leans in and fumbles urgently to grab his brother’s hand.  “Al, are you okay?  Do you know what year it is?  How many fingers am I holding up?”

Alphonse blinks at their twined hands.  “None?  And… I think that depends on… what year we ended up in.”  With the hand Ed isn’t wringing the life out of, he grips Roy’s shoulder to steady himself.  “What’s the date today, Colonel?  And please, for goodness’ sake, put me down before you hurt yourself; I’m sorry.”

Roy lowers him to the car seat and sets him on the edge, keeping a flattened hand on his back in case he sways.  “It’s the fourth of November, 1923.  Well—the fifth, now, given the hour.”

“That’s interesting,” Alphonse says.  “We’re practically time-travelers now, as well as universe-leapers and general ne’er-do-we— _Ed, what happened to your arm_?”

“Gate, I guess,” Ed says.  “It’s fine.”

Alphonse’s eyes are saucer-sized now, without a trace of bleariness.  “You _destroyed_ it!”

“The _Gate_ destroyed it,” Ed says.  “And that’s what we’re telling Win if you want either of us to survive.  It’s no big deal.”

“‘No big deal’,” Alphonse mutters in the tones of one who suffers long and often.  “His arm is hanging off and bleeding all over the sidewalk, and it’s _‘no big deal’_.”

“Let me fix that house,” Ed says, reluctantly releasing his brother’s hand, “and then let’s get our sorry asses to a hotel or something.”

“Stay with me,” Roy says before his better judgment knows he’s drawing breath.

Ed stares at him for a long, long moment.  There are too many tiny lines at the corners of his eyes; there are too many scars on his cheeks and his neck and his jaw, silvered in the starlight; there are too many stories with sad endings in the depths of his gaze.

Then he offers up a small, tired sort of smile.

“If you’re sure,” he says.  “It’ll be an awful lot easier than explaining this anywhere else.”

“Forgive him,” Alphonse says as Ed tromps over to the mangled door and touches his left palm to the dangling one on his right.  “Of everything, it was you that he missed the most—more than alchemy, I think; you’d have to ask him to be sure, but of course he’d never tell.  I don’t think he could if he wanted to—I don’t think he has the words for what he feels, and that’s part of what he’s so afraid of.  It gives you a great deal of power over him.  I don’t suppose I have to tell _you_ this, do I?”

He’s watching Roy’s face closely and smiling thinly, and somehow his dark eyes are very soft, but all the same Roy feels like he’s being flayed alive.

“You’re different,” Alphonse says.  “I didn’t know what I was looking for last time—I’d never met you, not in any way that counted; I was working from the evidence of secondhand accounts.  But we’re not the only ones who limped along without something that made us feel whole, because life marches on, and we never had a choice—are we, Colonel?”

“Brigadier General,” Roy says.

Alphonse’s smile curls upward at both ends.  “My apologies.”

“Not at all,” Roy says, listening to the just-slightly-uneven steps behind him, still hardly daring to believe the sound.  “I was a corporal when last you saw me; I believe I actually set a historical record for speed in rising through the ranks.”

“Like it counts if they just restored you,” Ed says.  “Try catching up on a hundred years of science and a thousand years of literature and _then_ come talk to me.”

“You liar,” Alphonse says calmly.  “You didn’t even pretend to care about the literature.”

“It’s all the same anyway,” Ed says, shoving his left hand into his trouser pocket and then changing his mind and wrapping it around his dripping metal arm.  “ _Oh, no, some Byronic asshole doesn’t love me; woe is I; no one understands; let me waste away to nothing, which is made all the easier given that I have no fucking backbone_.  Excuse me while I _vomit_.”

“Was that supposed to be a summary of _Wuthering Heights_?” Alphonse asks.

“Maybe,” Ed says.

“Did you _read_ it?” Alphonse asks.

“I tried,” Ed says.  “What the hell does it matter, anyway?  Let’s blow this joint.  Shift your ass, Al.”

Roy moves past him and makes a point of holding the car door open, keeping his posture impeccable.

“What’s your problem?” Ed asks, eyeing him.

“If I’m going to be your chauffeur,” Roy says, “wouldn’t you rather that I looked the part?”

“Never seen a chauffeur with an eyepatch before,” Ed says, dropping onto the seat.  The way his hair bounces over his shoulder stops Roy’s throat; the way he cringes and clutches at his arm almost stops Roy’s heart.  “If you kill us on the road after all this, I’m gonna be _real_ pissed, Mustang.”

“Me, too,” Roy says, and shuts the door.

  


* * *

  


“I don’t know what I expected,” Ed says, gazing around himself where he stands in the middle of the foyer, dripping blood on the tiles.  “Flags, maybe.  A shrine to your career.  An encyclopedia of sarcastic comebacks for every occasion.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” Roy says.  “We should really deal with that arm of yours; the lavatory’s upsta—”

“Did you just say ‘ _lavatory_ ’?” Ed asks.

“Shut up, Brother,” Alphonse says.  “General, do you suppose I should call the Rockbells and the Hugheses now, or in the morning?”

“It’s probably better not to wake Elysia,” Roy says, “but I imagine Miss Rockbell would begrudge the delay.”

“And by ‘begrudge’,” Ed mutters, “you mean ‘beat us all to unrecognizable pulp with wrenches for’.”

“That was the insinuation I was going for, yes,” Roy says.

Ed grins at him and looks… surprised.  Surprised and delighted and young and _free_.

“Run along upstairs, Brother,” Alphonse says, making a shooing motion with one hand for good measure.  He’s so much taller than Ed now—does it drive the elder Elric to distraction, or has he finally made his peace?  “You’ll probably be able to hear Winry screaming from there anyway.”

“There’s a telephone book under the table,” Roy says.

“It’s all right,” Alphonse says.  “I remember the numbers.  I remember a lot of things.”

There isn’t time to ask about that, or about what he said before—the love of Roy’s life is currently bleeding on the carpet runner from wounds unseen.

Ed is gritting his teeth by the time they top the stairs, and it’s all Roy can do not to reach out and stroke his hair to soothe him.

“I may’ve—” Ed cranes his neck to try to glance at Alphonse over the railing.  Roy can’t tell if he’s successful.  “—understated—this—a bit.”

There is a terrible sort of quaking in Roy’s heart, like an echo of things to come—like a glint of lightning and the sick certainty of imminent thunder ravaging the windowpanes.  “We’re nearly there.”

Ed huffs out a laugh.  “Easy for _you_ to say.”

“Touché,” Roy says, slipping past him to lead the way down the hall.  He holds the bathroom door open, and Ed gives him an unreadable look before stepping through.

 _That’s_ new.

“Time was,” Ed says, flicking on the light, “you’d die before you let me get the last word.”

“Times change,” Roy says.

Ed looks at him for another long moment before he smiles faintly and carefully lowers himself to sit atop the porcelain wall of the bathtub.  “All right,” he says, clenching his teeth again.  “Let’s see what we’ve got.”

What they’ve got is a horrific tangle of torn flesh and twisted steel streaked with old blood and welling with the new.  The bolts securing the edge of the automail have been ripped almost entirely out of Ed’s skin; when he peels the stained and stiffening fabric all aside, the whole arm hangs crookedly, completely unsupported.  Raw flesh gleams in pits and pockets everywhere the metal has been wrenched away, and for a moment even Ed looks disconcerted.

“Oh,” he says.  “Huh.  Yeah, that smarts.”

Roy’s stomach keeps clenching and unclenching on the off-beats of his banging heart; to see Ed’s skin shredded, his hair matted, his indefatigable body so _damaged_ is to stare a tragedy in the blood-bespattered face—but all the same, the primary emotion surging through Roy’s weary frame is _relief_.  Ed will survive this.  Ed will heal and come back stronger, greater, brighter.  Of all the tolls he could have paid for passage—of all the things he could have _lost_ —

“Come here,” Roy says.  “Sit on the edge of the sink; we need to sterilize this.”  He starts to extend his hand, but he has no right; he’s been granted no permissions; he has no knowledge and no cause but his own self-interest.  “Do you suppose it would be better or worse to unfasten the arm?”

“Less strain,” Ed says, hiking himself up onto the counter left hip first, swinging the rest of his weight smoothly after, and gathering his steel elbow in against his chest.  There’s a massive, jagged white scar just beneath his left collarbone, slicing almost all the way from sternum to shoulder.  “But given the inoperability, I figure either the wires or the nerve connections pulled loose.”  He reaches down to yank half a dozen squares of toilet paper loose and starts dabbing at the curved edge of the steel, trying to peer into the workings.  “See, if it’s the connections, I could free this fucker without feeling a thing—but if it’s the _wires_ , and they’re damaged or tangled or some shit, and I tear ’em out…” He grins, pale under the harsh overhead lights.  “Well, it’s a toss up whether Winry or the pain’d kill me first.”

“Delightful options, both,” Roy says.  He tugs the hand-towel from its ring, dampens it beneath the faucet, and cautiously begins to wipe the blood from the metal, folding it half a dozen different ways to find clean fabric for another blot.  He makes his way across and reaches the torn skin—the gut-twisting wreck where the bolts pulled free and took far too much flesh with them to ease their passage.  He is a cultivator of restraint, a _connoisseur_ of self-control, and still he almost hesitates.  His heartbeat sounds uneven, and the deliberate draw of breath into his lungs seems insufficient.

Every night he’s dreamt; every day he’s wished and wondered; it’s really almost _funny_ that he’s not prepared.

That’s Ed for you.

There’s a hiss from behind the clenched teeth as Roy presses the towel in against the wounds.  “ _Ahh_ —shit.  No, keep going.  Get it over with.”  Ed’s jaw is tight, and his eyes are narrowed almost to slits as he curls his left hand around the edge of the countertop.  He tilts his head back, grinding his teeth as Roy swabs deeper, further, onward across the worst of it.  “Hey, if you— _ha_ , oh, _fuck_ —if you—cold water before the stain sets—it’ll wash out—”

“Forgive my crudeness,” Roy says, “but I don’t give a fuck about the stain.”

The visible slivers of Ed’s eyes gleam.  “If you think _that’s_ crude, you wouldn’t even want to hear some of the shit I said in Latvia.”

“All the same,” Roy says, and his fingertips are grazing Edward Elric’s skin; slick smears of blood or no, this is what he’s been living just to _dream_ of, and now it’s _real_ — “I want to hear everything.”

Ed’s eyes flit to him, startled, and his tired body wants to freeze.

But cowards count no victories, and he is _through_ retreating.  He’s been a moving corpse for years; he will not back down from the dizzy possibility of all he’s ever _dared_ to want—even if it fails, even if it falls, if it crashes and burns like a comet scorching through the sky; even if it ends in nothing but a swathe of broken Earth and a streak of ash and one last shattering of a heart too weak and scattered to be reassembled when the wreckage cools—

He pauses with the towel in one hand and splays the fingers of the other gently, _so_ gently, from Ed’s sternum upward, thumb resting in the hollow of Ed’s throat.  Ed’s pulse beats softly against his skin, fluttering as Ed swallows hard—once, twice—

“You sure about that?” Ed asks, and his eyes lift to Roy’s and start to smolder.  “There’s some shit I can’t even think about without feeling sick all over again.”

“I have a great deal of those stories,” Roy says, meeting his gaze.  He barely dares to blink; if this were to vanish, he’d be done for.

Ed’s eyes flick away and then back to him, and the warmth in them is indescribable as the grimace stretches into something like a grin.  “Yeah?” he says, and—slowly, _so_ slowly—he pries his clenched fingers from around the edge of the counter, curls them, uncurls them, and winds them into Roy’s shirtfront.  “Guess maybe we should stick together, then.  Negotiate a trade.”

“You’ve developed a knack for diplomacy in your absence,” Roy says over the deafening beat of his disbelieving heart.  “I didn’t think it was possible.”

There’s a touch of a smirk to Ed’s grin, and a shadow at its edges.  “I’d ruled out a hell of a lot of things until they happened.”

Roy is too giddy to play coy; the ice he’s stepped out onto is thicker than he thought.  He touches Ed’s jaw as lightly as he can manage, and he can’t help the burn in his gut at the bloody smudges of fingerprints he leaves behind.  Is it wrong to thrill at the thought of marking his claim?  “I tried not to hope for too much.”

“I know that feeling,” Ed says.  The animal wariness hasn’t left his eyes, but his lashes dip, and he leans into Roy’s hand.

They’re two of a damned miserable kind, aren’t they?  They’re both ceding ground inch-by-inch, grudgingly, guardedly—

But it’s been so long, and the fissures in the bedrock run so _deep_ , that there’s no stopping the landslide now.  It’s only a matter of time before the ground gives way, and they collapse directly into one another, and whatever crawls out of the rubble will be their due.

Well.  Roy’s no stranger to digging, or to dust.

“I think,” he says, softly, sliding the pad of his thumb over Ed’s cheekbone, savoring its curve, “that we’d better put you back together before your brother tears both of us apart.”

“Probably,” Ed says, and his grin is tired and tentative, but there’s a _sweetness_ to it—and with his voice thrumming straight through Roy’s skin, twining down the tendons in his wrist, burrowing into his bones— _God_ , it’s a beautiful thing; and _God_ , but blood and weariness and harsh fluorescence can’t even _dull_ Ed Elric in the flesh.  “He doesn’t have a whole lot of patience for procrastinators.”

“Or for those who leave his brother coping with indescribable pain,” Roy says.

Ed shrugs his remaining shoulder—and, by the wince, regrets it.  “Not that I’m not used to it, but… yeah.”

“That’s worse,” Roy says.  “And all the more reason to spare you as much as we can.”

Ed’s smile is lopsided and faintly wry.  “You know how they say that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?  I used to think that was true—and sometimes it is, I guess.  Sometimes it teaches you just how much you’re capable of, and sometimes it hones you to a sharper edge, and the next time you’re not as scared.  But sometimes it just sort of carves a hole in you from the inside, right up to the underside of the skin, and no one can _see_ it, but then if they break through that one spot, you just— _cave_.”  His eyetooth dimples his lower lip for a moment; it’s chapped and full and wonderful, and then it’s curving as he grins again, darkly this time.  “And the longer you go, the more of those holes you get, and the higher the likelihood that someone’ll hit one without even knowing it.”

“I think perhaps that’s why we seek other people,” Roy says.  “In the hopes of finding someone who knows where all the weak spots are but protects them for us instead of taking advantage.”

Ed swallows, and his hand lifts to let his fingertips dance _so_ lightly against Roy’s wrist.  “That’s the thing,” he says.  “With the trying not to hope for too much.”

“You close yourself off,” Roy says.  “You shut yourself away.  And you cease hoping altogether, and you lose the ability to believe in anything.”

“Yeah,” Ed says, breath light, eyes searching.  “Well—anything except Al.”

“Al,” Roy says, “who will slay me for my slowness and be justified—you’ve always had a talent for getting me sidetracked.”

Roy would live another thousand years in hell for Ed’s grin.  “Oh, so it’s _my_ fault?”

All of the happenings on a planet are, of course, the _fault_ of the sun it orbits; all of the things that live, that grow, that parch, that scorch, that die—

All of the things that warm and warm until they burst into beautiful flame—

Roy spreads his hand just below a deep, wretched split in the skin where the force of a bolt dragging outward tore the flesh around it.  “We should stitch this.”

“‘We’?” Ed says.  “Please, do the damn honors.  Don’t tell me you keep suturing thread in your bathroom cabinet.”

Roy opens his mouth, shuts it, opens the cabinet, and… “If I don’t tell you, is it less absurd?”

“Holy _shit_ , Roy,” Ed says— _Roy_ , _Roy_ , _Roy_ ; never has his own name battered at the insides of his skull until he doubts his ears— “There’s a difference between ‘well-prepared’ and ‘fucking creepy’, and you’re flirting with it.”

“How foolish of me,” Roy says, gathering needle and isopropanol and more gauze still.  “All this time, I thought that I was flirting with _you_.”

Roy glances up through his eyelashes—which is unwise given the combination of compromised depth perception and sharp object in hand, but he just can’t _help_ it.  Ed is biting his lip in a failed attempt to cage another grin.

“Do you always brandish fucking needles at people you wanna get with?” he asks.  “You know I’ve got a problem with those things, right?  Is it a habit to try to seduce people with their own fucking phobias, or am I special?”

“You are most assuredly one-of-a-kind,” Roy says.  He dips a cotton ball in the alcohol and dabs blood away from the edges of the rift in the skin.  “You are also, as they say, looking a gift horse in the mouth.”

Ed appears to be trying not to laugh.  “You _didn’t_.  You just—you _didn’t_.”

“What didn’t I do?” Roy asks, knotting the thread.  He only ever uses these implements for stitches, repairs, and the necessary embroidery—broken skin and buttons and red arrays on white.

“You _didn’t_ set yourself up for a ‘gift Mustang’ joke,” Ed says, “because that would be fucking _criminal_.”

“I didn’t realize creative interpretations of idioms were against the law,” Roy says.

“ _Creative interpretations_?” Ed asks.  “That was a shitty pun; if they’re not illegal here, I’m going ba— _ohfuck_ —”

“It’s all right,” Roy says, guiding the needle through as Ed grinds his teeth and squeezes his eyes shut.  “This won’t take long; keep breathing.”

“Easy for _you_ to fuckin’ say,” Ed grits out.

“I know,” Roy says.  That’s two; the blood is welling; he soaks another cotton ball and tosses it into the sink.  “I’m sorry.”

“Fuck your ‘sorry’; just _stitch_ already.”

“There’s only _sew_ much I can do,” Roy says.

The laugh that emerges from Ed is a sad and strangled thing, but Roy will take it—and treasure it until the end of days.

“You’re a fucking riot.  Who even lets you get outside?”

“I’m crafty enough to slip through the cracks sometimes,” Roy says.  That’s three.  He pinches the next inch of broken flesh together with his free hand; his fingers slip in the blood, and he fumbles for another piece of cotton to wipe it clean.  “The worst is holding them back in meetings with the generals; they don’t even seem to _realize_ how many punning opportunities they’re passing up.  It’s really rather tragic.”

Ed hisses through his teeth as Roy draws the next stitch tight—but not _too_ tight; if the skin protrudes between the loops of thread, it’ll scar unevenly, won’t it?  He’s only ever done this in emergencies, on battlefields, with the mortar blasts ringing in his ears too loud for him to hear the misery caused by his ministrations.

“And here I used to think you had dignity,” Ed gets out, looking determinedly at the wall.

“Only the thinnest pretense,” Roy says.  He tugs—gently, but not quite cautiously enough; Ed’s jaw tightens until Roy thinks he’s going to break a tooth.  “Is that disappointing?”

“It’s a relief, actually,” Ed says, and Roy’s heart leaps, and his stomach drops, and his fingertips slide, and he chases another trail of red with the cotton.  “Always figured that was one of the main things keeping us apart, you know?”  He chokes out half a laugh.  “Back before there were universal barriers in the way, I mean.  I always thought you wouldn’t… well, I always thought you _wouldn’t_.  That’s all.”

“Dignity was never an obstruction,” Roy says.  “I haven’t claimed any in my own mind for a long time, although it’s flattering to know I’ve got most people fooled.”  Five.  That’s enough.  Carefully, carefully, he starts to tie it off.  “More than anything, I think, it was the prospect of tainting you.”

This laugh bears an odd edge of something like hysteria.  “ _Tainting_ me?  You remember how we _met_?”

“That’s exactly what I mean,” Roy says, striving hopelessly to smooth out the thread.  “I was older than you are now when I _hired_ you, Ed.”

“Don’t give yourself so much credit,” Ed says.  “You didn’t _hire_ me; you made a sales pitch, and I sold my soul—at a profit, as far as I’m concerned, given how fucking shattered and forsaken the damned thing was by then.”

Roy cuts the thread as close to the knot as he thinks he can get away with; given Ed’s incapacity to stay still, the likelihood is awfully high that he’ll end up pulling at the stitches.  “No one with a quarter of a conscience would have conscripted you like I did, knowing what I do.”

“Yeah, well,” Ed says.  “We were both young and stupid and ambitious, right?”

“And these days we’re just stupid?” Roy asks.

Ed grins.  “Now you’re gettin’ it.”

Roy wipes his fingers as best he can on the nearest towel and starts taping gauze over his handiwork, and then over all of the open wounds he doesn’t dare to touch.  The Rockbells will have to look to it.  They’ll be over the _moon_ , won’t they?  It would be a gross injustice to keep the Elrics away from them—away from their family, away from their _home_ —for long.  Roy’s duty here is to patch them up and send them on; he has no claim to anything.

“Whoa,” Ed says.  “You went _grim_ all of a sudden.  I fucking hate it when you do that; what did you start thinking about?”

“Nothing,” Roy says.  When did Ed—renowned through the ranks for his inability to comprehend even the most painfully blatant of social cues—learn to read people?  When did he learn to do it _well_?  Roy can’t afford to give him anything else to go on—his wide-eyed candor as a child was brutal; to add emotional intelligence to his arsenal could make him unassailably destructive no matter how noble his intentions.  “We should get you a sling.”

“We should get me a new body,” Ed says.  “One that actually works once in a while would be fucking fantastic.”

“I don’t know,” Roy says.  “I’m rather fond of this one.”

Ed snorts, cradling the unresponsive automail to his chest and watching the way the bandages bow when his muscles shift.  “I guess I’m kinda attached to it.”

Roy looks at him.

He grins, slowly, but then broader by the moment as Roy starts to smile.

“People are going to say I’m a bad influence on you,” Roy says.

“Fuck ’em,” Ed says.  “You and I have both always lived by that rule, haven’t we?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Roy says, “I suppose you’re right.  Hold that thought.”

He steps out into the hall and raids the linen closet for the oldest, thinnest sheet in his haphazard years-of-living accumulation.  Returning to the sheer weight and power of Ed’s presence is like an instantaneous sunburn; he doesn’t know how long he can bear this without _disintegrating_ , and it’s hopelessly bizarre that he’s eager to find out.

One of the drawers by Ed’s knee yields a tiny silver pair of scissors meant for some grooming process or another, and he hacks the sheet into strips perhaps less expertly than a man of his renowned consideration ought—but given that the span of his elbows is wider than the space between the counter and the wall, and that his hands are trembling from the seething maelstrom of adrenaline and endorphins roaring at his core, and that _Edward Elric’s_ fierce gold eyes are fixed on him for the first time in _years_ —

He can hardly be blamed for a bit of clumsiness, can he?

He’s no doctor—quite the opposite—and he’s never had a knack for repair.  All the same, once he’s wrapped the sheet around Ed’s metal forearm, over one shoulder, over the other, back and forth across and underneath until its weight is carefully supported in the loop of fabric instead of dragging downward on Ed’s flesh, he thinks that he _can_ say fairly that he hasn’t made it worse.

Ed twists his torso experimentally, and the tightening of muscle under his scar-tracked skin stops Roy’s throat and steals his breath and ignites every last nerve in his body; he’s piqued for panic or battle or—

“Not too bad,” Ed says.  “It’ll hold, anyway.  Probably until Winry gets here.”

Roy pauses.  At the rate this is going, Ed might just have an appreciation for tact by now.  “Is that your intention?  I had assumed that the two of you would want to go to her.”

“You kidding?” Ed asks, and there’s a sliver of the old grin, the _first_ grin—the one’s that’s half-challenge and half-delight.  “You think I’m gonna take this goddamn thing on a train right now and jar it _more_?  And more to the point—”  He reaches out and curls his left fist in Roy’s shirtfront.  In another moment he’ll be holding Roy’s heart in his hand literally as well as figuratively, because it’s about to squeeze itself out between his ribs and tear straight through.  “—you think I’m gonna take my eyes off your dumb ass for a _second_ now that I’ve finally got you back?”

“I didn’t want to presume,” Roy says.

Ed tilts his head slightly—just enough to make his hair swing as his eyes narrow, and his smile curls.  “Yeah, you’ve changed.”  He flattens his left hand on Roy’s chest, and the surging gallop of Roy’s heartbeat seems to startle them both.  “But I think… I mean, I think I like it.”

Roy lays his hands very lightly on Ed’s knees.  “That’s different, too—for you and I to be in agreement.”

  


  


art by the wonderful [uchiha-umeko](http://uchiha-umeko.tumblr.com), originally posted [here](http://uchiha-umeko.tumblr.com/post/109924929181/dunno-man-i-felt-like-rereading-some-fics)  


  


Ed’s grin is more sunbeam than knife blade, and Roy has been _so_ cold for _so_ long— “It’s a whole new fuckin’ world, Roy.”

He can feel it in his veins and his bones and the lightning-tingle forking on his skin.  “Well-put.”

Ed’s devastatingly clever eyes scour his solitary one for another moment, then two, and then the warm hand planted over his sternum clenches around a fistful of his shirtfront and hauls him forward, toppling him into a kiss like the ground—like the _universe_ —giving way.

The fabric of that universe is shredding too fast to contemplate or comprehend; for a long series of seconds he couldn’t hope to number, there is _nothing_ in the wide cosmos but this soft darkness and Ed’s mouth, Ed’s breath, Ed’s tongue, Ed’s teeth, Ed’s dizzyingly tantalizing gasp-moan, Ed’s faint and oh-so- _satisfied_ sigh whispering across his cheek—

Ed’s fingertips creep up along his throat, probing with a shy, gentle sort of tentativeness all the sweeter for being so flagrantly uncharacteristic—they settle at his jaw, at about which time he rediscovers both of his own hands buried in Ed’s hair, thumbs sweeping back and forth along his cheeks, and from the slickness on Roy’s skin and underneath his fingers, both of them are smearing blood _everywhere_ —

It’s giddy—it’s _mad_ ; it’s all the dreams and all the desperate wishes; it’s _heady_ with the innumerable hopes abruptly fulfilled, with the rush of abstract desires made bone-rattlingly _real_ —

Ed’s mouth is so beautifully warm and welcoming, surprisingly deft and startlingly playful—there’s an odd twirl of relief in the pit of Roy’s stomach at the kind thought that that bright little flare in Edward Elric’s soul hasn’t been crushed entirely beneath the weight of years.

Ed draws back, drags in a breath, and opens his eyes slowly, as though his eyelashes are heavy—and they look it, thick as they are.

“Well,” he says.  He licks his lips, clears his throat, and smoothes Roy’s collar, gaze flicking to it and then back up.  “That was worth the wait.”

“That was just to thank you for saying you’d stay,” Roy says, dragging his open hands slowly, slowly, worshipfully down Ed’s sides.  “I haven’t even begun trying to make up for the wait.”

“Oh, yeah?” Ed asks, ribs shifting under Roy’s fingertips as he raises both legs to curl them around Roy’s back, heels digging into his spine, forcing him to stumble another half-step forward, so that their bodies press tight, Ed’s hips to Roy’s, slotted close like they were cut to fit together—only the edge of the counter seems to be keeping them from merging entirely, and Roy can’t help resenting its intrusion.  “You wanna get started?”

Roy can hardly say _no_ to a sin that feels like absolution.  If that makes him weak, after all these years of wanting—so _be_ it.

Kissing Ed again, a touch more gently, with a sliver more care and even more admiration, with an intent to caress, to appreciate, to _memorize_ —it’s just as transcendent as the passion was mere moments ago; it’s a duller burn, warmer but not as bright, and this one he could bathe in for the rest of his life, if he was lucky.

He’s never been lucky before.  What _if_ —?

Ed’s legs fold in closer still around him, clinging; Ed’s fingers tangle in his hair—their chests are aligned so closely that the ridges of their collarbones collide; burnished-but-battered steel edges scrape at Roy’s skin and the buttons on his shirt, and he can feel the latter sticking to him with a warm wetness; they must have rubbed one of the wounds to bleeding again—

When he can bear to pull away, he sets his forehead against Ed’s.  The fabric of the patch whispers, and he wonders—just how far might they go?  Just how much might be possible in this space of mingled breath between them?

“Jesus,” Ed says, panting lightly.  His tongue flicks out to touch the corner of his bottom lip, which Roy was very much enjoying nibbling on.  “I could do this all night.”

“But you won’t,” Roy says, making sure he’s offering a smile that will reach his eye.  “Because you’re going to get plenty of rest as part of the healing process, and in the meantime, you’re going to go downstairs and reassure your brother that I did not do any intentional damage to your person and furthermore am very committed to your recovery so that he doesn’t feel inclined to stab me in the back.”

“He wouldn’t,” Ed says, and his bent legs squeeze Roy’s hips once more before they release; there’s a _terribly_ enticing mischievous gleam in his eyes.  “It’d be poison.  And he’d make sure you knew it was him.”  He waves his left hand and then braces it on Roy’s shoulder to slide down off of the countertop.  He winces at the way that dropping the last few inches jars his right arm, then grins up at Roy as he steadies himself on his feet.  “Oh, come _on_ , as if he would—you’re the safest guy in Amestris right now.”

“Oh?” Roy asks.

Ed breezes past him and out the door.  “Hell, yeah.  He knows how much I want you.”

Alphonse is tidying the knickknacks and curios on the end table and straightening the runner when Ed and Roy reach the bottom of the stairs.

“Winry screamed,” he says calmly.  “Then she cried.  Then she said she was stupid for crying, because she hated us.  Then she asked if we were okay.  Then she asked if your automail was okay.  Then she said she was going to kill you.  Then she said she has an appointment early tomorrow, but she’ll be on the first train after that.”

Only when he’s finished the narrative does he look over.  His eyes linger on the finger-shaped smears of blood drying on Ed’s jaw and then the matching stains on Roy’s throat and shirt collar, and he rolls his eyes.

“ _Brother_ …”

Ed bristles.  “What?”

Alphonse sighs and turns back towards the table, but not before Roy _thinks_ he sees the beginnings of a smile.  “Nothing, never mind.  Forgive me, General, but could I trouble you for something to eat?”

Before Roy can tell him he’s welcome to anything as long as he forgives Roy’s bloody fingerprints up and down his brother’s skin, Ed is barreling towards the kitchen.  “Jesus, Al, you’re a _genius_!  Roy, hey, what’ve you got?”

Elrics will be Elrics.

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Roy says honestly.  “Help yourself.”

“Christ,” Ed says.  He reaches up to open the first cabinet and, rather transparently, tries to make it look like he’s wincing at the bareness of the pantry, not the twinge in his shoulder.  “We gotta shake you out of this tragic bachelor thing pronto.”

“‘We’?” Alphonse asks, gliding past Roy and then in front of Ed, opening the next one for him.  “I’ll leave that herculean endeavor to you, Brother.”

“I beg your pardon?” Roy says.

“Here,” Alphonse says, grabbing down a box.  “Muesli.  Your _favorite_.”

“Oh, gag me with a _spoon_ ,” Ed says.  “I’ll just starve.”  He favors Roy with a look that’s two parts wistful and one _extremely_ seductive.  “What’s your plan of action, _sir_?”

Oh, God.  Oh, _God_.

Roy’s mouth is very, very dry of a sudden.  It’s probably a coincidence.  He clears his throat.  “I believe the corner store is open all night.”

“Goody,” Alphonse says.

“Like we haven’t had _worse_ ,” Ed says.

“What a shame it is,” Alphonse says, “to aspire towards _improvement_ in the conditions of one’s life.”

“Whatever,” Ed says.  He nudges a lower cabinet open with his right toes, crouches down, and sighs.  He’s wrapped his left arm around the sling to protect it from his own knees; time has imparted a degree of self-awareness that no quantity of near-death experiences could teach.  “What do you _eat_?”

Roy shrugs, which, while not precisely dignified, is less disastrous than saying _Black coffee and whatever Breda leaves behind_.

“Perhaps we should just go to bed,” Alphonse says.

“What’s the point?” Ed asks.  “It’s, like, five in the morning.  The sun’ll be up soon.”

“The point is that you’ve been awake for thirty-eight hours, two of which were spent bleeding profusely,” Alphonse says.  “I counted.”

Ed turns to Roy with an expression of absolute betrayal and jabs his thumb towards his brother.  “Can you _believe_ this shit?”

“If you come upstairs and rest,” Roy says, “I’ll tuck you in.”

Ed’s eyes widen.  He’s really here, isn’t he?  Even Roy’s tortured brain couldn’t conjure a dream of him scouring the kitchen for edibles in an improvised sheet-sling with Roy’s own bloody handprints on the sides of his neck, stark against his skin in the artificial light.

“Oh, yeah?” Ed asks slowly.

“No warm milk required,” Roy says.

“I don’t believe you have any milk to work with,” Alphonse says.

“Sold,” Ed says.

  


* * *

  


Alphonse makes a valiant attempt—accompanied by several vaguely reprimanding noises—to scrub the worst of the damning dried blood off of his brother’s face, an endeavor from which Roy swiftly escapes in order to shake the worst of the dust from the sheets in the guest bedroom.  Just once does Alphonse’s voice rise (“I don’t disapprove of _that_ ; I disapprove of you being _filthy_ and _weird_!”), and then it’s not long before both of the Elric brothers are hesitating in the hallway, glancing at each other and then at him.

Not everything has changed.  Not everything that was has been lost to the ravenings of time and hard-earned wisdom, and there is so much _hope_ in that—

Alphonse thanks Roy extraordinarily politely, shuffles past him, and shuts the guest room door.

The vastness of the silence makes it all the easier to hear Ed swallow.

“Um,” he says.  “So.”

“So,” Roy says, and holds a hand out, and Ed’s latches onto his so tightly he can’t feel his fingertips.

  


* * *

  


“Aren’t you going to sleep?” Ed mumbles with what appears to be the last of his wakefulness, if the heaviness of his eyelids and the slurring of his syllables are reliable indications.

“No,” Roy says.

“Just gonna watch me?”

“Yes.”

“Perv,” Ed says.

“Possibly.”

“S’okay,” Ed says, mostly into the pillow.  “I like you that way.”

“That’s good to hear,” Roy says.

‘Good’, of course, is the wildest understatement in the known world for what he feels, but Ed’s drifting at the feathery edge between sleep and waking as it is, and Roy doesn’t imagine he’s eager to sit through the outpouring of the sandstorm in Roy’s chest—unwelcome promises and soaring declarations swirl white-hot and diamond-edged, howling into every crevice, wearing down his resolution to be more than just this _need_ —

Sagely, Ed says something to the effect of “Mmngh”, and then he’s solidly unconscious at last.

Even pale and battered, with the violet-dark crescents underlining his too-beautiful eyes; even with blood matted here and there in the hair trailing over the pillow, he looks so damned perfect in Roy’s bed that it’s staggering all over again.

Roy reaches out a careful fingertip and tucks a wayward wisp of hair back behind his ear.  Faintly—but _unmistakably_ —Ed’s mouth curves up into a tiny, satisfied smile.

  


* * *

  


Roy is a master manipulator and a rhetorician that the ages will regale regardless of his fate.  All the same, it takes him almost half an hour to talk himself into leaving the bed after the sun comes up.

Ed is so mercilessly breathtaking in dawn light that it’s really not his fault; and there is a part of him still whispering— _If you leave, he will vanish; they’ll be gone.  If you blink, if you move, if you_ dare _to let him out of reach—do you suppose you can survive that again?  How would you like to find out?_

He slides off of the edge of the mattress—softly, softly, trying not to strain a single spring.  Ed snuffles twice, mumbles once, and shifts a half-inch, the better to bury his face in the pillow again.  It’s a contortionist’s trick with the way his right arm is bound, but Roy knows better than to be surprised by now.

For all of Alphonse’s disdain, the perpetually-open corner store and its bleary-eyed owner provide him with perfectly tolerable items, which promptly get abandoned on the kitchen counter while Roy ghosts back up the stairs and peers into his bedroom.

Ed’s still here.

This can’t be right; things like this don’t happen—not to him; not after who he’s been and what he’s done and all the lives that are levied against him.

Dear _God_ , he’s not too proud to take it.

As he’s relocating the contents of the overflowing shopping bags onto the not-especially-sanitary countertop—he will admit a marginal potentiality that Ed had a fraction of a point about ‘tragic bachelorhood’—there’s a knock at the doorframe.

It’s Alphonse.  “May I use the shower?”

“By all means,” Roy says.  “There are towels in the linen closet—it’s the next door down.  Help yourself.”

Alphonse lingers for just a moment, smiling slightly.  Roy raises his eyebrows.

“Nothing,” Alphonse says before he can find a tactful way to ask.  “Only that it’s… nice.  Being here, being back, being among people who know us and care very deeply.  Brother’s incapable of going anywhere without accidentally making friends, but having friends is not the same as _belonging_.  And we belong here.”

 _You do,_ Roy thinks fervently.  _It’s painfully obvious; you left a gaping hole behind, and you have no_ idea _how much it ached all this time.  Please, please don’t leave.  Don’t ever leave.  Whatever it takes._

He’s starting to wonder if the change he’s detected in Alphonse is some sort of telepathic awareness; the boy simply smiles wider as Roy’s mind spins out platitudes, and then he sighs contentedly and turns for the stairs.

“Anyway—thank you.  I’ll be right down to help make breakfast if you like.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Roy calls after him.

“And I’ll try to wake Ed without incurring the Wrath of Bedhead,” Alphonse calls back.

“That,” Roy says, “would be greatly appreciated.”

  


* * *

  


Speaking of the devil Roy knows and doesn’t know and would die for, he makes an appearance shortly after a freshly-scrubbed Alphonse has settled down and started on the toast.  Edward hasn’t forgotten how to make an entrance; his arrival is heralded by the deafening _clang_ of a steel foot against an aluminum umbrella stand, a loud curse, and uneven footfalls stumbling across the foyer tiles.

Ed leans against the exact part of the doorway that Alphonse favored a few hours before.  Maybe it’s genetic.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he says eloquently, scrubbing at his eyes with the heel of his left hand.  “Lost more blood than I thought.  I need some fucking protein.”

Roy steps away from the stove and gestures wordlessly to the pan of bacon, the pan of sausage, and the pan of eggs.

Ed stares for a long, long moment.  Then he crosses to the table, hooks his foot around the leg of the chair next to Alphonse, draws it out, and drops into it.  He picks up a fork, considers it, and then looks thoughtfully at Roy.

“I’ve been figuring for a while that I’m in love with you,” he says.  “Now I’m pretty sure.”

Roy can’t speak.

Alphonse, however, has no trouble.  “ _Brother_ , could you _not_?”

“What?” Ed asks, scowling at him.  “Like you didn’t _know_.”

“That doesn’t mean I want to _hear_ about it,” Alphonse says.  “And you’re constantly complaining about how much you hate romance.”

“This isn’t romance,” Ed says.  “This is fate.”

Alphonse somehow manages to unfold his napkin aggressively.  “You don’t believe in fate.”

“Shut up,” Ed says.  “You’re taking advantage of the fact that I’m incapacitated.”

“No,” Alphonse says, “I’m taking advantage of the fact that you’re an _idiot_.”

“I taught you everything you know!” Ed says.

“General,” Alphonse says calmly, “your sausage is burning.  And no, that’s not a euphemism.”

He’s right, though blessedly it’s not past rescue.

“Don’t worry,” Alphonse says as Roy whisks the pans to safety.  “Brother will eat anything.  Ah… also not a euphemism.  You know what?  I’m going to be very, very quiet for a while.”

“You’re lucky I’m so damn anemic right now,” Ed says, “or I’d kick your ass all the way back to Britain.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Alphonse says.

“You were being quiet,” Ed says.  “And I’d _think_ about it.”

Roy sets a plate in front of him.  “You shouldn’t do any serious thinking about kicking your brother’s ass on an empty stomach.”

Ed gazes at him in rapture for a full, uninterrupted second before attacking the food one-handed.

And it’s really rather sad, perhaps, that that second alone almost stops Roy’s heart for good.

  


* * *

  


After a few minutes of utensil-clattering chaos, he steps into the hall and dials a familiar number.

“Hello?” Riza says.

“Listen,” he says.

He holds the receiver towards the kitchen doorway.

“There’s no _wrong way_ to eat toast,” Ed is saying.  “You’re turning into a cranky old lady.”

“You have butter on your face,” Alphonse says.

Roy brings the receiver back up to his ear and waits.

He can hear her breathing for several moments before she speaks.

“Will you be coming in at all, sir?” she asks.  “Or shall I stop by later?”

“I don’t have the slightest idea what I’m doing anymore,” he says.  He realizes, somewhat belatedly, that he’s grinning.  “It’s… excellent.  It’s _wonderful_.”

“I’ll bring the whole team this evening,” Riza says.  “And your paperwork.”

“Even that almost sounds wonderful,” Roy says.  “Thank you.”

He can hear the smile she’s trying to hide.  “Yes, sir.”

  


* * *

  


Even through the haze of sleeplessness and indestructible disbelief—in spite of the muddle of desperate, possessive want and gut-crushing fear of the repercussions—this is indisputably the best day off that Roy has ever had.

“I’ll go to the store,” Alphonse says when the breakfast dishes have duly been cleared.  “That was a lovely breakfast, General, but I believe you underestimated Brother’s appetite.”

“Let me go,” Roy says, although the truth is that he’s rather amputate his own hands than walk away from Ed when those terrible-wonderful eyes are close enough to drown in.  “You shouldn’t be doing chores on your first day back in this universe.”

“It’s really all right,” Alphonse says.  “I’d like to breathe the city in a bit, and it’ll give me a chance to familiarize myself with the way things are here if I can take my time.  And I might go visit Mrs. Hughes in person—or do you think that would be frightening to her?”

“I think she’s a great deal stronger than any of us realizes,” Roy says.

Alphonse smiles.  “I think you’re probably right.”  He pauses, and there’s an agonizingly adorable tilt of sheepishness to his smile.  “Although… I’m afraid the three francs in my back pocket aren’t going to get me too far.  May I borrow some money?”

“You’re buying food for _my_ home,” Roy says, digging for his wallet.  “Keep the change.”

As Alphonse puts on his coat and his shoes and starts for the door, he’s waylaid by a gold and silver streak that attaches itself to him by one arm.

“Be careful,” Ed says.  “Come back soon.  Look both ways before crossing the street.  Don’t take candy from strangers.”

“Yes, Brother,” Alphonse says, patting Ed’s back.  “I may stay at the Hugheses’ a while—I’ll give you a call.”

He gives Roy a very, very significant look over Ed’s shoulder.

“Call also if you’d like a ride home,” Roy says.

“Thank you,” Alphonse says.  He pats Ed’s shoulder-blade one last time.  “You can let go of me now, Brother.”

“I _could_ ,” Ed says, “but maybe I _won’t_.”

“Ed,” Alphonse says.

“Jerk,” Ed says, releasing his death-grip on Alphonse’s waist.  “All right, get out of here, you punk.”

Alphonse pats Ed’s working forearm and smiles.  “Be back soon.”

When the door closes behind him, Ed releases a tremendous sigh and wanders past Roy down the hall.  “You got a couch?  I had way too much coffee for sleep, but I think I need to collapse on something.”

“Just keep walking,” Roy says—and follows, of course; what in the world else is he meant to do?

Ed drops onto the soft leather couch in the living room like a sack of bricks and then cringes and cradles his right arm again.  “Jesus _fuck_ , I’m a slow learner.”

Carefully, carefully, Roy sits down beside him.  “I wouldn’t say _that_.”

Ed’s right eyebrow arches, and he musters a grin.  “Yeah?  What would you say?”

“That your brain is too preoccupied with high-level brilliance to commit space to such petty, quotidian concerns,” Roy says.

“Holy shit,” Ed says.  “You really _do_ want to get in my pants.”

“Guilty as charged,” Roy says.  “Although I hope you realize it’s a great deal more than that.”

Ed is smiling, half-wryly; the world can continue to turn.  “I’ve figured for a while,” he says.  “But now I’m pretty sure.”

Roy fights to keep his voice soft but steady—he wants to scream this to the high heavens, but somehow, a the same time, it’s knotted halfway up his throat.  Presumably that’s his indefatigable self-preservation instinct kicking in.  He can’t blame it too much; it’s the only thing that’s kept him alive this long.  “You can be entirely sure if you like.”

Ed makes a show of rolling his good shoulder and relaxing into more of a _sprawl_ than a _sit_.  “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Roy says.

Ed looks tickled to hear the word on his lips—bright eyes and that darting grin and the dip of his eyelashes and the faintly defiant tilt of his chin.  “You talk a good game, Mustang, but anybody can talk.”

“True,” Roy says.  He shifts up onto his knees; he’s really not young enough for this nonsense, but he’ll pay his dues in aches and pains until the _sun_ burns out if that’s the price for this.  He reaches across Ed’s body to plant his hand on the couch cushion and leans in, eye open just a sliver, to breathe against Ed’s mouth.  “Do you think perhaps we should give up talking for now?”

“Couldn’t hurt,” Ed says, arching up into him, good hand fumbling for a fistful of his shirt to haul him in _closer_ — “There’s a lot of shit I wanna say, but it can wait.”

“This can’t,” Roy says, brushing his lips so lightly across Ed’s that his nerves cry out almost _audibly_ , and Ed’s eyelids flicker as he chokes on a groan.

“It definitely can’t,” Ed says.

There are several things staying Roy’s hands above Ed’s belt.  Firstly, he is not about to risk worsening the automail injury with sex, no matter how good the sex in question; he imagines that there is a high likelihood that both of them would lose themselves in it and forget the rents in Ed’s chest and shoulder until it was too late.  Secondly, he is not foolish enough to chance Alphonse sauntering back in with groceries and finding his precious big brother splayed out naked on Roy’s living room carpet; he can think of much more pleasant ways to die.  Thirdly, his carnal instincts have not wholly abandoned him during the trek across the cold, barren tundra that has made up the last six years—he wants their initial encounter to be _matchless_ , in the hopes of facilitating further encounters in great quantity.

Fourthly, if Ed rejects any part of him, he is done for.  Having accepted the prospect makes it no less daunting.  This is either the dawning of a new existence flushed with adulation and triumph, or it is the end of him.  There is no middle ground.

“Hate this,” Ed pants.  “One-handed _sucks_.  It’s not _enough_.”

“Neither is one eye,” Roy says, leaning his forehead against Ed’s, tracing two fingertips along the line of his jaw.  “Nothing and no one has compared even to the fading memory of you, and to _have_ you now, and not be able to drink you in as eagerly as I would like—”

“You’re killin’ me,” Ed says.  “You been saving all this shit to say to me all these years?”

“Not intentionally,” Roy says.  “But yes.”

Ed’s arm hooks around the back of his neck and draws him in; if the soft out-breath of absolute contentment is to be believed, his shoulder is the perfectest place there is for Ed to press his face.  “Every time I think I’ve got a handle on it, I remember how fucked up the world is.”

Roy runs his fingers through the long, long, beautiful tail of gold hair.  “Significantly less so with you in it.”

“Bet you say that to all the girls,” Ed mutters.

“On the contrary,” Roy says.

“Everybody I was ever with,” Ed says.  “They were always a replacement for you.  I knew it.  Sometimes I even told ’em that.  But it didn’t change anything; it just—it put a fucking spotlight on all the places they fell short just ’cause they weren’t _you_ , you know?  Like if you just want a body, sure, any body’ll do, but—if you want a body that casts a _specific_ silhouette, and you’re just trying to fit other shapes into it—it makes it way more obvious that the edges don’t line up, and then you start to _resent_ them for not being built just right, and—I mean, all this time, it was so fucking _easy_.  It was just you.  It was always just you.  And you were always just… here.”

“Living primarily for the off-chance that I might not have to die without you,” Roy says.

Ed curls in closer, grip on Roy’s shirtfront tightening.  “Shut up.  I didn’t mean to take so fucking long; it was just _hard_ ; there was so much _shit_ going on, and we had to _survive_ before I could even start figuring out how to do alchemy without alchemy and work out how the blood links function—”

“I wasn’t criticizing,” Roy says, burying his face in Ed’s hair and breathing deeply.  “I was stating a fact.  The infinitesimal possibility that you might _want_ to come back was the only candle flame in a cavernous darkness.”

“I tried to accept it for a while,” Ed says into his shirt.  “Ask Al; I did.  But it was always… I mean, of course with him there, it was _better_ , and I could actually _be_ happy sometimes; I didn’t have to be perpetually sort of half-drunk and checked out like the first time, where it was all just— _gray_ , but… we don’t make sense there.  We just don’t.  It’s the same thing—there are spaces for two guys _like_ us, but they’re different, and we don’t fit, and it feels like your whole skeleton’s getting crushed every second as the place tries to cram you into the little mold that got left behind.  Silhouettes.  But we’re just not _right_ there, and it starts to make you so fucking _tired_ , and… I mean, I guess it’s more than I ever deserved, really, but—to know that you were _here_ , and you _made_ it, and—all that shit I never said, all that shit I tried to not even _think_ about, because I was just _torturing_ myself with fucking dreams I hadn’t earned in the exchange—”

“You’re home,” Roy says softly, stroking back his bangs.  “You made it.  You gave us both a second chance at… everything, I think.”

Ed smiles up at him—a faint, tilted half-smile, almost disbelieving.  “Yeah.  I—yeah.  Jesus, I’m still expecting to wake up.  I feel like I gotta get this all out before I sit up with the sun in my eyes.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” Roy says.  He tries to tuck another lock of gold behind Ed’s ear, but his finger gets trapped in a tangle.  “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Ed says.  “Why are you even touching me?  I’m _disgusting_.  I should take a bath before I start growing weird bacterial cultures.”

“A bit grimy, I will grant you,” Roy says, “but never disgusting.”

Ed grins, cheeks darkening.  “You’re so fucking smooth.  What the hell am I going to do with you?”

“I have a few ideas,” Roy says.

“Is one of them getting you to help me with that bath?” Ed says.  “If you know what I _mean_?”

“Yes,” Roy says.  “And I assure you that I do.”

Ed looks so _delighted_ that Roy can’t help needing to kiss him again.

  


* * *

  


Alphonse conscientiously telephones several minutes before five o’clock, by which time Ed is well-scrubbed and somewhat well-fondled, and by which time the entire office has invited themselves over for dinner to verify the return of the Elrics, despite the fact that no one but the real Ed would grace Havoc with the title of “asshat” over the phone when his existence came into question.

“So,” Alphonse says in a low voice when he’s been brought up to speed on the plan for the evening; “how is he?”

It is unsettling to Roy how easily he understands the things that Alphonse Elric _doesn’t_ say.  In some ways they are disturbingly alike.  He can’t decide whether it’s flattering or bewildering that that’s probably part of what about him appeals to Ed.

“How are _you_?” Roy asks.  “Or, to put it slightly more specifically—how do you _know_ so much?”

“Oh,” Alphonse says.  “That’s right.  I meant to mention—all the memories I lost when Ed put me back into my ten-year-old self immediately reappeared when I crossed over to the other world with him.  It’s funny; when you’ve been an adolescent twice, there’s really not much that can faze you—not that Ed doesn’t try.”

“Ah,” Roy says.

“I imagine that explains a lot,” Alphonse says.

“Yes,” Roy says.

“Fair enough,” Alphonse says.  “Let me guess—he’s passed out again?”

“On the couch,” Roy says.  “Cuddling a book.”

“Don’t be jealous,” Alphonse says.  “He doesn’t stay interested in individual books for much longer than it takes to read them.”

Roy’s brain is doing strange things, none of which are conducive to responses.  “I…?”

“What time is dinner?” Alphonse asks.  “May I invite Mrs. Hughes and Elysia as well?”

“Of course,” Roy says.  “Alphonse…”

“Yes?”

“Just—” There doesn’t seem to be a graceful way to say this.  “Please don’t… ruin me… for this.  I think you’re capable.”

“That depends entirely on what you mean by ‘ruin’,” Alphonse says calmly.  “And if you’re good to him, we won’t have to find out, will we?”

Odd how there’s a sharper edge of steel to him now than there ever was when he was made from metal.

“I suppose not,” Roy says.

“I hope you don’t think I don’t like you,” Alphonse says.  “I do, and I’m very grateful, and it’s really not personal.  It’s just that for years now, and even more-so on the other side—for most of my life, Ed has been the only thing I’ve _got_.”

“But not anymore,” Roy says.

There’s a long silence on the line.

“You know,” Alphonse says, “that’s a rather good point.”

“Shall we see you for dinner at seven, then?” Roy asks.

“Yes,” Alphonse says.

  


* * *

  


The phone rings halfway through dinner, though the assembled company is so loud Roy barely hears it.  He touches Ed’s arm as he slips out of his chair and starts for the hall, and he catches Alphonse and Riza each raising an knowing eyebrow at him as he goes.

“Mustang,” he says into the receiver.

“Rockbell,” Winry says.  “Are those dummies still there, or did I have a fever dream vivid enough to get me on a train?”

“They’re here,” Roy says.  “Which one would you like?”

“Ed, please.”

“Certainly.”

It’s fascinating, how there’s a kind of torment to it—Roy is constantly, overpoweringly aware of Ed’s presence on the premises; it’s like there are forked lines of electricity tracing from where the boy stands at the telephone back to Roy’s heart, and they call to him; they dance and prickle and tug.  The gaping emptiness defined him with its edges, but this…

This is _ownership_ —plain and indisputable.

Compensating senses or no, it shouldn’t be possible for him to hear Ed’s footsteps returning; he doesn’t have to look to know the precise instant Ed’s hand will curl around the back of his chair and draw it out to sit again.

“She’s gonna be here tomorrow,” Ed says.  “She told me not to make it worse, and I said ‘I don’t think it can get worse’, and she said ‘I’d forgotten what a delight it is working with you’, but I think she’s actually pretty happy about it.”

“I don’t suppose she has a replacement waiting this time,” Alphonse says.

Ed grimaces.  “Nope.  ‘Hoping to salvage what she can of the one I mangled’ were the exact words.”

Alphonse attempts to hide a grin behind his glass and offer a noncommittal “Mm.”

It would be more amusing if Roy wasn’t so preoccupied with the revelation that a twenty-odd-year-old girl who shared her childhood with these two young men was able to let go of them, and he _wasn’t_.

Ed nudges Roy’s knee with his—the gesture has the spirit of an elbow to the ribs, and logically Roy knows that this is a substitute for such because Ed doesn’t _have_ a workable elbow on the right, but it’s so much _closer_ than all that, and his heart keeps pushing at his sternum like a desperate prisoner; the ricocheting of it is damaging his lungs—

“Hey,” Ed says.  “You don’t have to babysit me while I convalesce or whatever, y’know.  I could always find somewhere e— _holy shit_ , Roy, your _face_ —”

“I think that’s his way of volunteering,” Alphonse says.  “That, or he’s just realized that he’s deathly allergic to everything he cooked.”

Falman looks interested.  “It’s highly unlikely he would have made it this far into the meal without a reaction.”

“ _Man_ ,” Havoc says.  “I love it.  You guys barely even have to show up, and the General’s losing it.”

“Losing what?” Fuery asks.

“Manhood,” Breda says.  “Independence.  Bachelordom.  Any right to claim he’s not a soppy housewife underneath it all.”

“I’m about to lose the life of my beloved second-lieutenant,” Roy says, looking directly at him, “in a tragic and inexplicable arson incident.”

“Duly noted,” Breda says.

“And as soon as I get this thing fixed,” Ed says, pointing at his right arm, “your charred corpse is getting an automail blade directly up the a— _ffrrmm_.”

Alphonse has laid a hand firmly over his mouth.  “You used up the one bad word you were allowed to say in front of Elysia,” he says at Ed’s accusatory glare.  “I’m taking it upon myself to preempt all the others.”

Gracia looks like she’s trying not to laugh, and it’s wonderful to see her like this.  “Thank you, Alphonse; that’s very… gentlemanly.”

Elysia looks put-out.  “Now I’m not gonna learn _anything_ good.”

“That’s not true,” Roy says.  It always feels like something is stabbing him directly in the soul every time Elysia is unhappy; if her mother wasn’t so vigilant, he would have spoiled her rotten by now.  “I’m sure Ed and Alphonse have some extremely good adventure stories to tell.”

“None for _kids_ ,” Ed says.

“I’m not a _kid_ ,” Elysia says indignantly.  “I’m _twelve_.”

Ed opens his mouth and then shuts it.  He swallows.  He looks… horrified, really.

“Right,” he says.  “You wanna hear about the time a crooked cop in Paris tried to shank me?”

Alphonse only has to cover his mouth four times before they all discover that this particular incident is the source of the scar Roy came across last night.

Elysia, of course, is absolutely ecstatic.

  


* * *

  


Everyone seems to be trying to finagle a few more hugs, shoulder-claps, and hair-pullings out of the brothers on their way out the door—and Roy can’t blame them; it still seems too good to be true, but physical contact solidifies the reality somehow.

Riza pauses to look at him.  “Should we expect you in the office tomorrow, sir?”

“Yes,” he says.  He can’t afford another day like today, phenomenal as it was; there’s too much to do.

But if he can _have_ this—if he can have _Ed_ —

It will be that much easier to drag himself through the days, won’t it?  All along, this was the deepest shadow; _this_ loss was the anchor making every movement forward a test of will.

This is what he’s been waiting for.  He’s always had the goal in mind as a motivation to keep breathing, but this is a reason to _live_.

Riza smiles.  Damn her preternatural ability to know what he’s thinking before he’s even thought it.

“Very good, sir,” she says.

“You know,” he says, “it _is_.”

  


* * *

  


He tidies the kitchen just enough to make it habitable tomorrow in the wake of the chaos of tonight, and then he starts upstairs, trying not to anticipate _anything_ ; upending his expectations has always been Ed’s favorite hobby.

But what if—

Wouldn’t it just be _transcendent_ —

All Roy wants, all he’s wanted for so long that it’s a mantra built of burning letters in his brain—

Just to hold him.

That’s all.

Just to have his warmth so close through all the shadowed hours that there’s no space between them for the nightmares to slip through.

He flicks the lightswitches as he goes.  He is owed nothing; he mustn’t presume.  He should tamp down any hopes he has left; he knows precisely where blind optimism leads—that is, directly back to blindness.

Ed is standing in the hall just outside his bedroom, glancing sideways at the door and picking at loose threads in the makeshift sling.

Roy’s body stops walking and starts yearning.  If only he was allowed to _touch_ — “Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” Ed says.  His eyes dart sideways, flit to Roy, and shift over towards the door again; his shoulders are angled for a retreat.  He looks like he’s been caught out at something, but… “Just—I mean, I don’t _want_ you to have to babysit me, is all.  Do you want me to sleep in the other room with Al?  I mean, you’ve got work tomorrow and all that shit; I figure you need your rest or whatever, and I really don’t mind; I probably got enough blood in your bed yesterday to last you for a couple years—”

“I’d love for you to stay with me,” Roy says.  They’re almost the real words.  “As long as you don’t think Alphonse will mind.”

“Are you kidding?” Ed says.  “He says I snore.  And kick.  Which is bullshit.  Mostly.  Are you sure?”

“Edward,” Roy says, “the limits of what I would do for another _moment_ of your attention are so far-flung and reckless that it terrifies me.”

Ed’s mouth trembles a little as it curls up into a smile.  “That almost sounded like the Mustang Speak version of a compliment.”

Slowly—gently—carefully—it’s not the same as it would be, if Ed had his right arm to defend himself; Roy has to give him every opportunity to pull away if it comes to that—Roy lifts a hand to press just his fingertips to Ed’s jaw.

“That almost sounded like an Elric ‘thank you’,” he says.

Ed grins, leaning _ever_ so slightly into Roy’s hand, and _God_ , just the warmth of his cheek feels like _paradise_.  “That almost sounded like a smartass wisecrack from a bastard colonel I used to know.”

It borders on surreal—standing here in his familiar hallway, with a new and older and even more staggering Edward Elric— _not_ a dream, _not_ a fantasy, _not_ a figment of his tortured heart and brain conspiring to undo his soul—but _in arm’s length_ , breath catching, heart beating, eyelashes flickering, mouth wet and red and _oh_ -so close—

“I missed you,” Roy says.  “More than I knew was possible.  More than I thought I could stand.”

Ed’s smile tilts sad and wry in equal measure.  “I can’t undo any of it.”

“You don’t have to,” Roy says.  “Just stay.”

“That I can do,” Ed says.

Roy’s not so sure of that.  He’s a nomad, isn’t he?  He’s a traveler; he’s a wandering soul; his tireless brain needs endless stimulation; he’s lived on an ever-changing path since he was a child—could he even _be_ happy sitting still?  Is he even capable, whether or not it’s a sad, scarred, cynical old soldier who’s offering?

“Jesus,” Ed says.  “You’re doing that thing again.”

“Which thing is that?” Roy asks.

“The thing where you’re thinking so hard I can hear the gears grinding,” Ed says, “and it’s something so shitty your whole face shuts down.”

“I’m sorry,” Roy says.  “It’s only—”

“I’ve done all the leaving I ever wanna do in my life,” Ed says.  “I’m so fucking _tired_ , Roy.  I’m tired of no safety net, and I’m tired of no roof overhead, and I’m tired of not knowing where I’m gonna sleep every fucking night, or what direction I’m going tomorrow.  I’m tired of making it up as I go along, and I’m _tired_ of walking away from all the people who give a shit if I live or die.”  Slowly, cautiously, he lifts his hand and lays it over Roy’s.  “I want to put down some fucking roots for once.  I want to _establish_ something.  I want to _stay_.  All right?  And I will.  I fucking promise.”

“You don’t have to say that,” Roy says around the stranglehold those words have on his throat.

“I know,” Ed says.  “I wanted to.”  He grins, and there’s a hint of the young tiger in it now.  “And holy _fuck_ , am I glad to be doing what I _want_ for once.  You have no fucking _idea_ how good it feels.”

Roy pauses.

Ed grins wider.  “All right, maybe you do.”

Roy loosens their layered hands, the better to knit Ed’s fingers through his instead.

“Come on, then,” he says.  “The bed won’t bleed on itself.”

Ed’s eyes gleam in the half-light, and his smirk sends plumes of flame directly down Roy’s spine.  “You are such a fucking charmer, you know that?”

“I’ve been told,” Roy says, drawing him in.  “You are absolutely stunning, and I’d give the other eye for a sliver of a chance at treasuring you forever—do you know that?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Ed says.

Roy is about to protest, but Ed kicks the door shut, grabs his shirt front, and kisses him until he loses any notion of what he was going to say.

As far as the start of a beautiful new future goes—it’s really rather perfect, all told.


End file.
